Monthly Archives: September 2012

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Event ID 19999 and 1

Following an upgrade from System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 to System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012, the System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMMService) service kept crashing a couple of times an hour.

In the Event Log under Applications and Services Logs there’s a VM Manager log.  In this log two events were logged:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.BitBos.VMRefresherBase.UpdateDVDDrives(IVMComputerSystem vmComputer)
at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.BitBos.VMRefresherBase.UpdateFullVMObjectToCarmine(IVMComputerSystem vmComputer, VMData vmData, UpdateRequired updateRequired, Boolean vmObjectHasChanged)
at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.BitBos.VMRefresherBase.RunOnDemandVmRefresh(Guid vmObjectId, VM tempVM)
at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.BitBos.VMRefresherBase.UpdateHostAndVMs(VMRefresherType refresherType, Guid vmObjectId, VM tempVm)
at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.VmOperations.RefreshVmSubtask.RunSubtask()
at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.TaskRepository.SubtaskBase.Run()
at Microsoft.VirtualManager.Engine.TaskRepository.Task`1.SubtaskRun(Object state)-2147467261

Virtual Machine Manager (vmmservice:1476) has encountered an error and needed to exit the process. Windows generated an error report with the following parameters:
Event:VMM20
P1(appName):vmmservice
P2(appVersion):3.0.6040.0
P3(assemblyName):Engine.BitBos
P4(assemblyVer):3.0.6040.0
P5(methodName):M.V.E.B.VMRefresherBase.UpdateDVDDrives
P6(exceptionType):System.NullReferenceException
P7(callstackHash):5b09
.

The cause of the error was a virtual server that had an iso file mounted in its DVD drive.  The iso file was held on a share on the old SCVMM server, which no longer existed.  Setting the DVD drive to no media resolved the error.

Windows 7 Desktop Configuration

As part of a Windows 7 deployment I’ve needed to make a few changes to the look and feel of the desktop.  Here are a few useful tips

Remove the Windows Media Player icon from taskbar

In your unattend.xml file, add Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup to the OOBE system pass.  There’s  a setting called ShowWindowsMediaPlayer.  Set the value of this setting to FALSE

Deploy pinned taskbar icons using Group Policy

The files are stored in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar and registry settings are stored in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband

Configure the task bar on a Windows 7 PC

Import the registry settings from HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband into Group Policy Preferences

Copy the files from %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar to a shared folder and use Group Policy Preferences to apply them to other PCs

Change the Start Menu to “Combine when taskbar is full”

Use Group Policy Preferences to apply the registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\TaskbarGlomLevel  Set the value of  TaskbarGlomLevel  to 1

Remove the IE welcome message 

Change the setting in Group Policy called “Prevent performance of First Run Customize Settings” to “Go directly to home page”

Remove the Lync welcome message

Use Group Policy Preferences to set HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\FirstRunPlayed to 1